The Peril of the Republic of the United States of America - Percy T. Magan

in political eminence until they were the
incumbents of the highest civil offices. They made
great advancement in various departments of
letters. The schools of Cordova, Toledo, Barcelona,
and Grenada were crowded with students. It was
the Jews and the Arabs who kept alive the flame of
learning during the mythological gloom of the
Middle Ages. They frequently resided at the courts
of Catholic princes as ministers of finance,
situations which they were eminently qualified to
fill.
But royal patronage proved incompetent to
save them from the bloody hand of the state
church, when their “flourishing fortunes had risen
to a sufficient height” to excite her envy. I quote
from Prescott:--
“Stories were circulated of their contempt for
the Catholic worship, their desecration of the most
holy symbols, and of their crucifixion, or other
sacrifice, of Christian children at the celebration of
their own Passover. ... At length toward the close
of the fourteenth century the fanatical populace,
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